Breakfast help!

It doesn't help that the pharmaceutical companies often provide scholarships and funds for medical schools!--where doctors are taught that drugs are the answer--which is actually sometimes true, but only in specific circumstances! What we end up with is "one size fits all"--and we all know that does NOT hold true!

Go figure...

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm..." thanks, Walter P. Chrysler. I believe it. That's what I want in my life--to give my imagination a chance, to live with energy and enthusiasm! P.S. I looked up enthusiasm, and it says the root words mean God within... interesting...!

Ralph Waldo Emerson said 'Life belongs to the energetic.' But you don't have to be frenetic and hyper--some energy is quiet and steady, like a heartbeat... and that works too! LOL

"What happens is the Goldilocks effect.. sometimes too high, other times too low.. and occasionally JUST RIGHT! Of course the doctor prefers the too high, since just right could lead to low blood sugars, which might cause you to need more care, so this is why you see so many people with 110-140 fbs. No danger of LOW blood sugars!! Blindness, kidney failure, rotten teeth, amputation, and heart disease maybe.. but not that dangerous LOW blood sugar problem.

So they teach you how to eat a high carb diet, so you don't get too low, instead of just cutting meds, so you don't get low blood sugars. "

A slice or two of that with butter on top and a quick 15 seconds in the microwave is great. I've used that recipe, replacing the shredded zucchini with a mashed banana to make banana bread. A single banana when eaten as is has too many grams of carbs, about 25, but in the bread, spread across 10 slices, and eating two of those, that is only 5 grams of carbs, and my body can handle that.

Your welcome Fancy. I used to eat a " diabetic " diet, and different cereals would spike my blood sugar at varying degrees, but I still took 1000 mg Metformin each morning, and night. The calories might be the same, but the carbs would vary wildly, and my blood sugar might be 80 mg/dl different, after each meal. If I eat 1.25 cups Frosted Flakes ( 183 calories ), it has 45 grams carbs, and 1.7 is fiber ( 43.3 net carbs ). A cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch( 190 calories ) has 37 grams of carbs, and 8 grams of fiber ( 29 net carbs ).

There is a huge difference between 43.3, and 29 grams, when it comes to blood sugars, yet we take the same dose of medication to counteract the spike.

The only real way they can be sure that the dose of medication isn't enough to cause a low blood sugar if you eat the 29 net carb, is to make it so your blood sugar stays high when you eat the 43.3.

If you dropped to 90 after eating the Frosted Flakes, and the next day had the Kashi, you might hit 70 two hours after breakfast. So what the doctors do, is make it so you drop to 90 after the Kashi, and never drop below 110 when you eat the Frosted Flakes. you spend most of your day above 110 mg/dl, destroying your kidneys, eyes, limbs, and kidneys, just so your doctor doesn't have to adjust your medication.

When taking Insulin, on the other hand, you adjust dosage based on blood sugar. Why isn't this the goal when taking pills? Because it is too hard. Pills can't be divided like Insulin, so you get a set dose, despite eating different amounts of carbs day to day, and having blood sugars that vary.

What happens is the Goldilocks effect.. sometimes too high, other times too low.. and occasionally JUST RIGHT! Of course the doctor prefers the too high, since just right could lead to low blood sugars, which might cause you to need more care, so this is why you see so many people with 110-140 fbs. No danger of LOW blood sugars!! Blindness, kidney failure, rotten teeth, amputation, and heart disease maybe.. but not that dangerous LOW blood sugar problem.

So they teach you how to eat a high carb diet, so you don't get too low, instead of just cutting meds, so you don't get low blood sugars.

If you doubt that low carb works to get off diabetes meds, just consider the one dietary change they made when you started.. cutting carbs. That dropped your blood sugar a bunch, and then they added pills. They could have just kept cutting carbs, and achieved the same results..lol, but then you wouldn't be a patient. You would have stable blood sugars, without meds.

The problem is, it takes a lot of work to wean yourself off meds, and you run the risk of low blood sugars. That is an immediate problem, while the damage caused by high blood sugars may take 10 years to develop. Today, it is much easier to worry about the low blood sugar, and keep your blood sugars artificially high, than to worry about an amputation 10 years from now. Plus they have convinced their patients that the amputation is inevitable, so they blame themselves, so win-win for the doctor. Better than the alternative.. teach you how to avid LOW blood sugars, and stay in a 70-110 range all the time. Especially because you might quit seeing the doctor so much, after finding you can do this on your own, without meds.

Instead of doctors working to heal you, and teach you how to manage your disease, they have turned you into a patient for life. You will go see your doctor for the rest of your life. They haven't actually fixed your problem. Furthermore, while taking these pills, and eating their diet, do you have normal blood sugar? For many, the answer is no. Hardly surprising, since their plan to treat diabetes is to spike your blood sugar by eating high carb.

"We can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them "

The only reason I can think of for low blood sugars, is that at random intervals, the body works correctly for short periods. So if you are not producing a lot of Insulin, it may temporarily produce at regular rates. If you aren't getting Insulin to be used, all of a sudden, it starts working, and the Insulin you have in your body suddenly transports all the glucose into muscles, and glycogen.

I don't have low OR high blood sugars any more, but I will tell you this. ALL of my low blood sugars came AFTER having high blood sugars. You spike your blood sugar, and the pancreas floods the body with Insulin. If the cells are receptive, your blood sugar crashes.

If your blood sugars are 80, and you eat low carb, and it goes up to 100, you may not produce any Insulin at all, and therefore, you will not have a crash. Over the next 5-6 hours, your blood sugar will slowly drop back down to 80, and you eat again.

If you wish to avoid low blood sugars, avoid high blood sugars, and large releases of Insulin, which overcompensate, and drop blood sugar to dangerous levels. Smaller up-swings = smaller down-swings.

The goal is to eat just enough carbs to raise sugars to 100-110, and then repeat when it drops to 70-80. Just keep nudging it up every time you drop. High fat, moderate protein, and low carb works well to do this.

Right now, you are consuming muesli, and then taking drugs to counteract what it does ( raise blood sugars fast ). If you eat 2 cups today, and take 1000 mg Metformin, and the blood sugar drops to 90, you are okay. If the box is almost empty, and you eat 1.25 cups, because that is what is left, and take the same dose, it will drop below 90. Even if we eat the same foods, the calories, and carbs vary slightly. When we eat different foods, they may vary greatly. Not only in how many carbs, but also in glycemic index. What matters is how much the carbs you eat at breakfast spike the blood sugar, and how quickly they are removed from the blood by Insulin, and drugs.

Not only are you taking pills to offset the effect of your food, but the flip-side is that you have to eat X amount of carbs, or you will get a low blood sugar, because you are taking a set dosage of pills. So while the effect of the food is variable, the pill is not. If you don't eat enough carbs, or they get processed too quickly, you run out of glucose to fuel your body.

What you end up doing is similar to a junkie doing uppers and downers. You get low, you eat carbs, then you get too high, so you take pills/Insulin.

To stop the roller coaster, what you need to do next time, is when you are at a low ( 70-80 ), don't spike the blood sugar back up to 180.. just eat enough to spike it to 110. Fat barely spikes blood sugar, protein has a moderate effect, and carbs spike the blood sugars quickly, and a LOT ( yes, some carbs less than others ).

So what you want is a high fat, moderate protein food, like eggs, and just enough LOW GLYCEMIC fruits/veggies to slightly raise blood sugars. Then adjust the medication DOWN.

If one is taking meds to offset the glucose spikes caused by the foods, and creating LOW blood sugars, all they need to do is stop eating the food that spikes that blood sugar, and they no longer need to take the meds. Then without high blood sugars, the body doesn't drop blood sugars, and there are no meds to do it either. By eating fat and protein, which digest slower, you also have glucose being released into the body for a longer period, but less of it at any one time. If done right, it is low enough that very little Insulin is needed. Without Insulin, or meds, the only thing that drops your blood sugars is time. You still need to eat.

The result is that you feel full, because the food is still being digested for a longer period, and you don't get low blood sugars. It is still possible, but with little Insulin, and no meds, it happens slowly, so as soon as you start to feel hungry, eat.

By nature meds are quick acting. You eat muesli, and your blood sugar is 180, that needs to be remedied quickly. Without meds, or Insulin, it would take many hours to drop back down to 80. At 2 hours it would be 180, and at 3, maybe 170, and at 5 hours 155, and at 8 hours, 120. So instead, you take a pill, which drops the blood sugar 80 points quickly.

That pill is mindless. It does it's job. Now you MUST spike the blood sugars to 180, and pray that your pancreas doesn't suddenly start to work, or else you will get a low blood sugar.

I find it amazing that we have come up with a treatment plan that forces us to spike our blood sugars, and actively hope our pancreas doesn't work properly. The disease is uncontrolled blood sugars, yet we actively work to raise them by eating high carb. This would be like treating skin cancer by going to a tanning salon, and then wondering why it was getting worse.

If we stop and admit that the #1 way to spike blood sugars is to eat carbs, then it should be obvious that the way to control blood sugars the easiest is to eat LESS carbs. Less carbs = less glucose = less meds = less mistakes with doses = less low blood sugars.

Now all you have to do is eat a certain amount of low glycemic carbs, with fat/protein, whenever your blood sugar drops. It will do so much more slowly without pills, or Insulin ( natural or injected ) to drop it artificially. So it may be 106 at 2 hours, and at 3 hours 102, and at 5 be 95, and at 8 be 82. You may choose to eat before 8 hours have passed. I eat every 7 hours ( 9, 4,11 ). I don't feel hungry, and I don't feel full, because my blood sugars stay between 85-105 most of the time, usually in the 90's. If I do wait past 8 hours, I might hit 78 at 9 hours, and 73 at 10 hours, and I will start to feel hunger, and at 11 hours, it may drop to 67, and I have to eat to avoid a low blood sugar.

What never happens to me, is having a low blood sugar 3-4 hours after eating. Because I don't have rapid drops in glucose levels, I have time to avoid them. If they happen suddenly, the first sign you may have is blurry vision, and no food at hand to stop it, which can be dangerous. Instead of this scenario, I would have an hour or two, after feeling the first few symptoms. Plenty of time to go find some nuts, or berries, or eat a meal.

You will need to gradually lower carbs, and meds that offset them, and reduce the likelihood of low blood sugars. This requires a plan, and should be done slowly

The other option, is carry a Glucerna candy bar around to spike your blood sugar. Glucose tablets work too.

"We can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them "

You're partly right, James! Dietary cholesterol only accounts for approximately 20% of the total in your body. That 20% can be important, but the stuff your body produces is more--and how much and how fast it's produced depends not only on what you eat, but there is also a strong genetic component that creates a tendency in certain families to produce more... I did a term paper on this subject back in college, because the genetic form runs riot in my family--it was long ago, but with some things at least, the basics don't usually change! LOL.

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm..." thanks, Walter P. Chrysler. I believe it. That's what I want in my life--to give my imagination a chance, to live with energy and enthusiasm! P.S. I looked up enthusiasm, and it says the root words mean God within... interesting...!

Ralph Waldo Emerson said 'Life belongs to the energetic.' But you don't have to be frenetic and hyper--some energy is quiet and steady, like a heartbeat... and that works too! LOL

From what I've seen the cholesterol in your diet is not very related to cholesterol in your body. That goes against intuition. I think there is a stronger correlation with eating carbs and your body producing cholesterol.

Eggs and cholesterol depends on who you talk to. Mine has been a little high, but my doctor says for me to eat lower carbs and go ahead and eat eggs (mainly the eggs because they are cheaper and I don't have money for much). I guess the best way to figure the egg thing is to talk to your doctor. I know there are many who still say no eggs.

I am not real sure how low carb works, but trying to learn more about it. Those who eat the really low carb say they have lower cholesterol with the low carb/high fat. I haven't increased my fat that much when I am eating lower carb. I am not going to push anything like that, especially not understanding much about it.

One thing I noticed is your breakfast seems to be pretty high in carbs, though, which might be causing you to secrete more insulin causing the lows and hunger.

Hi 1Crazydog. I have been eating muesli with raisins and a banana for breakfast, but by 8am my blood sugar gets low. I'll be teaching English at a junior high school here in Japan, and I can't eat in the classroom or at least until 12:45 pm when lunch starts. Altohough it's considered rude to eat on train in Japan. I'll have a Glucerna bar which my mother sent me from America.

Check out some of the Fritatta recipes on Spark. I think you can make them ahead and reheat in the mornings and with the eggs, veggies, maybe meat they would keep you full longer. Maybe if you get lows, take some fruit with you to counteract them. One of the ideas of the protein breakfast is to avoid too much release of insulin so you don't get low and hungry too soon. I always get really hungry and it keeps up all day if I start the day with carbs.

What do have for breakfast to manage your blood sugar until lunchtime? I'll be starting work at new location with an hour train ride plus twenty minute walk I need to be there by 8 am.So I've been getting up at 4:30 am to get used to the new schedule and going for a walk for 40 minutes in the morning. I can't seem to get past 8 am without low blood sugar, today it was 59. I live alone My so called kitchen has a tiny refrigerator and one small gas burner stove. I'd love some ideas for easy to make breakfasts. Preferably leaving no left overs. Thanks.

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